65 pages • 2 hours read
Tahereh MafiUnravel Me
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Juliette Ferrars, 17, is in the bunker at Omega Point, the rebel stronghold where she, her boyfriend 18-year-old Adam Kent, his little brother 10-year-old James, and the rebel spy, 20-year-old Kenji Kishimoto, all fled at the end of Shatter Me. There, she thinks about the outside world, which she hasn’t seen in two weeks. She struggles to remember that this is not like the jail cell where she was trapped at the beginning of Shatter Me—she is not a prisoner here. Despite this, she feels increasingly anxious as time goes on. She is supposed to be learning to harness her Energy so that she can use her powers of lethal touch to help the members of Omega Point, who are training to take down Warner, the leader of Sector 45, and his men, who work for the totalitarian regime known as The Reestablishment.
Juliette spends more time worrying that she will hurt someone, either accidentally or intentionally, than she does preparing. She thinks about how Warner is alive, and that nobody except her knows that he can touch her without suffering from her powers.
Chapter 2 Summary
Castle, a 30-year-old scientist and leader of Omega Point, urges Juliette to practice using her powers. He is gentle but firm, and Juliette wishes he would be less kind. He tells her to focus on how she broke through Warner’s torture chamber and punched through a steel door to save Adam (two events from Shatter Me), but Juliette feels used and remembers all the ways she has failed.
Castle tells her that Kenji, the only one who was willing to risk working with her, will partner with her for training starting tomorrow. He tells Juliette she needs to socialize with other Omega Point members, not just Adam. The people of Omega Point trust Kenji, so spending time with him will help her gain trust among the rebels. Castle doesn’t understand why she’s withdrawn, but Juliette thinks the people fear her. She has never learned to socialize between her incarceration and her powers, and thinking of this causes her self-loathing to surge. Castle seems disappointed and urges haste; they’re running out of time before the war with Warner’s men.
Chapter 3 Summary
Adam and Juliette steal time together. They each have roommates and the strict rules of Omega Point mean they’re rarely alone. While Juliette understands the need for rules and security, she resents how it keeps her from Adam because she finds intense pleasure in touch. They kiss, and Juliette particularly likes when Adam compliments how she feels. Things grow heated until Adam suddenly pulls back, thinking he heard someone. He grows flustered, confessing how much he wants Juliette. She is flattered until Adam begins to call himself “stupid.” Juliette asks if Castle has learned anything through the “testing” he has been performing on Adam. Castle suspects that Adam’s immunity to Juliette isn’t coincidence, but rather a sign that Adam also has a form of Energy (as do approximately 50 members of Omega Point, including Castle himself, each able to do different special things).
Adam is evasive, and Juliette suddenly notices that he seems tired and strained. He tells Juliette not to worry about him, but she still feels something is wrong. Before she can inquire further, Juliette’s roommates, twins Sonya and Sara, enter the room. Adam leaves and just as Sonya is about to say something, the lights flicker out for the night.
Chapter 4 Summary
Juliette thinks of a recurring dream she has been having about the bird that matches the tattoo on Adam’s chest. The dreams had left her while she was in Warner’s bunker, but now they’ve returned. In the dream, the bird appears to fly, but it is stuck in the air. Each morning, Juliette wakes from the dream confused and anxious.
Juliette puts on her suit, which is designed to stop her from touching anyone accidentally, and heads to the dining hall. She wants to sit with Adam, but Kenji intercepts her. Juliette is snippy with him, and Kenji is flirtatious in response. She secretly enjoys his presence, laughing, and playing along, as his antics grow sillier and sillier. Still, she remains anxious over Adam’s strange attitude.
Chapter 5 Summary
Adam, Juliette, and Kenji eat breakfast together. Adam is not amused by Kenji’s antics, and Juliette attempts to defuse the situation. Castle approaches, friendly but strained; he wants to run tests on Adam and Juliette together. Adam is vehemently opposed. He and Castle go back and forth, making unclear references to Adam’s “progress” and “everything [they’ve] learned,” but don’t answer when Juliette asks what is going on. Castle is surprised that Adam hasn’t already told Juliette about his ability to deactivate others’ Energies (which is disclosed in Chapter 13), but Adam cuts off Castle before he can reveal anything to Juliette. Cryptically, he says he will “fix this,” though Juliette still doesn’t know what there is to fix.
Chapter 6 Summary
Adam storms off, with Castle following him. Juliette asks that Kenji take her wherever they just went, but Kenji refuses. Juliette, terrified, pins Kenji against a wall and demands that Kenji tell her what is happening. Kenji reluctantly agrees, and then points out that, since he is so much bigger than her, she should not be able to trap him against a wall so firmly. Juliette at first thinks she’s never done this before, then remembers that she has: in Warner’s torture chamber. Juliette is more concerned, however, with the tests Castle is performing on Adam.
Chapter 7 Summary
Kenji takes Juliette to a part of Omega Point she didn’t know existed. He uses a key card to open a wall into a massive chamber full of smaller glass rooms, which are full of people experimenting with their powers. She hears a cry of pain and finds Adam, strapped down and in agony. Castle watches, taking notes.
Juliette erupts in rage, as Kenji holds her back. Castle explains that Adam has volunteered and that Castle has undergone the same tests, which test for supernatural abilities. Juliette accuses him of being the same as The Reestablishment, and Castle grows angry, using his psychokinetic powers to make the walls tremble. Castle scolds Kenji for bringing Juliette to the research rooms, saying she isn’t ready to see the work they do. Juliette looks at Adam’s limp form and blames herself for everything bad in his life. Rage overtakes her, and she punches through the floor. As everyone gazes at her in horror, she understands “that [she has] the power to destroy everything” (37).
Chapter 8 Summary
Juliette freezes, certain that Kenji and Castle will finally stop being kind to her, as she has expected all along. Kenji instead gently removes the glove from Juliette’s injured hand as she faints from the pain.
Chapter 9 Summary
Juliette wakes up in the medical wing three days later. She vomits and then notices how carefully Sonya and Sara are caring for her because they cannot touch her safely.
Chapter 10 Summary
Sonya and Sara explain that Juliette nearly collapsed the tunnels with the force of her punch and theorize that she fell unconscious to heal from the physical and psychological repercussions of “overloading” her abilities. Juliette is horrified that she could have killed someone, but the twins reassure her that it isn’t her fault she doesn’t know the limit of her powers. Juliette asks for Adam, but Kenji says they had to keep him away. He starts to explain Adam’s anger, but Juliette interrupts him—she doesn’t want to hear it.
Kenji asks for a moment alone and explains that he brought her to Omega Point on Castle’s orders because they thought it would be a safe place away from those who want to use her. But Juliette remains remote and inactive, which worries Castle. Kenji confesses that he feels bad for her, but he is suspicious: Did Juliette manipulate him into taking her to the research labs to bring down Omega Point from the inside?
Juliette is shocked at the accusation. She worries over her failures to be “good” and fears how willing she was to hurt Castle while in the grip of her anger. Kenji tells Juliette she must take her powers seriously and has to stop pretending she isn’t dangerous. If she’s going to stay at Omega Point, he says, she must learn to control herself and her powers.
Kenji tells her that she needs to speak with Adam and clarify that her love life isn’t important when war is looming. He asks Juliette to confirm that she’s “all in” and tells her to report for training at 6:00am the next morning.
Chapter 11 Summary
Juliette apologizes to Sonya and Sara, even as they reassure her it’s okay. Sara, unafraid, touches Juliette through a latex glove. Juliette decides to take a risk and thanks them, saying she would like to be their friend.
Chapter 12 Summary
Juliette claims that she is fine to leave the medical ward herself, but Sara and Sonya insist on accompanying her, which makes Juliette feel both embarrassed and pleased. They reassure her that others only fear her because they don’t know her. Juliette thinks that “this is what it’s like to have friends” (48). Juliette returns to their room to find Castle waiting and assures the twins that she is okay to face him alone.
Chapters 1-12 Analysis
The initial chapters of Unravel Me deal with the aftermath of Juliette’s traumatic experiences from her time kidnapped by Warner, incarcerated in the psychiatric facility, and rejected by her parents due to her lethal touch. These events introduce the theme of the Psychological Effects of Physical Isolation. In the early weeks at Omega Point, Juliette struggles to remember she is not a prisoner: “sometimes the old fears streak across my skin and I can’t seem to break free of the claustrophobia clutching at my throat” (6). Juliette frequently experiences emotions as physical effects, augmented by the absence of physical touch in her life due to her powers. The narration, as well as the other characters in the novel, is ambivalent about Juliette’s preoccupation with her past. While other characters, most notably Kenji, encourage Juliette to stop worrying about her personal concerns when there is a looming war, the text’s preoccupation with Juliette’s emotional state suggests that moving forward from her self-loathing and intense anxiety may not be as simple as just deciding to do so. Juliette’s progress in these chapters away from someone consumed with her own pain to someone who can both feel that pain and participate actively in the world around her is incremental and involves setbacks. Yet, by the end of this section, she demonstrates willingness to change that is presented as an optimistic first step toward becoming more integrated in the society of Omega Point.
Juliette’s relationship with Adam is characterized as all-encompassing, both physical and emotionally. When they have a rare opportunity to kiss, Juliette thinks, “It’s too much for me, too much, so much, so new, so many exquisite sensations I’ve never known, never felt, never even had access to before. Sometimes I’m afraid it will kill me” (14). Mafi deploys a mixture of literary and stylistic devices to denote Juliette’s overwhelm. The mix of epistrophe (in which a word repeats at the end of successive clauses, as in “too much, so much”) links with anaphora (in which a word repeats at the beginning of successive clauses, as in “so much, so new, so many” and “never known, never felt, never even had access to”) creates a building effect that parallels the breathless feeling Juliette describes while kissing Adam. The strikethrough effect builds on Mafi’s use of Juliette’s journal entries, which appear occasionally in Unravel Me and comprised much of the narrative in Shatter Me. While the strikethroughs in Juliette’s journal entries denote things she had written and then literally crossed out, the strikethroughs in Juliette’s non-journal narration suggest thoughts she does not wish to have. These strikethroughs allow readers to experience Juliette’s internal conflict as her identity shifts throughout the novel.
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